Health and Safety (Coursework Sample)

SAFETY AND HEALTH IN SOCIAL AND HEALTH CARE ENVIRONMENT By Name Course Instructor Institution City/State Date Task 1 AC 1.1 Procedures, legislation, and policies underlying safety and health in social and health care settings Maintaining and creating safe work conditions is one of the highest priorities in social and healthcare organizations. According to Richards (2003), maintaining a safe surrounding mirrors a level of vigilance and compassion for the patient and worker welfare that is critical as all other elements of competent Indeed, various policies, legislation, and procedures help to address the safety needs of social and health care organizations, including the Social ane Health Care Act of 2014, the National Occupational Standards, and the Standards of Care Quality Commission. The purpose and composition of these provisions are explained below in brief: The Social and Health Care Act of 2014 The Social and Health Care Act of 2014 is an important pieces of provision because it lays down principles to be factored in protecting the health and safety of recipients of social and health care (Lee, 2021). The Care Act 2014 describes social and health care should be rendered in the UK by requiring providers and local authorities to partner in ensuring people seeking social and health care receive preventive services that prevent the worsening of their care needs and ensure prompt action to the needs they present with. The Care Act 2014 also gives local authorities the responsibility to ensure that people get the advice and information they need to make good decisions concerning support and care and that they get access to a range of appropriate and high-quality services to select from. In general, the Care Act ensures that people seeking social and health care have more control over their support and care by placing them at the centre of care. Seeking to achieve people-centred care, the Health and Social Care Act 2014 is centred around six principles that guide how health and social workers interact with patients and service seekers, including empowerment, protection, prevention, proportionality, partnership, and accountability. Empowerment entails providing an opportunity for patients and service seekers to influence social and health decisions by discussing all possible implications of their decisions without enforcing the opinions or views of social or health workers on them (Lee, 2021). The principle of protection concerns defending people from the adverse impacts of neglect and abuse. The Act provides clear guidelines on how people can raise concerns regarding the well-being and safety of people with care needs especially when there is a risk of neglect or abuse (Williams, 2015). The third principle, protection, is based on the notion that social and health care professionals should primarily focus on service users’ and patients’ well-being, including the objective to reduce the need for support and care in the future ). Proportionality and appropriateness are ideas that should be applied to all evaluations and are not, in themselves, part of the needs or carer’s assessment. A proportionate evaluation should b rigorous are required to identify all the needs of a person, thereby supporting evidence-based and person-centred care (Williams, 2015). On the other hand, the principle of partnership is related to shared decision-making and ensuring service users and their friends and families are involved. Partnership also involves multi-professional collaboration in providing appropriate support and care (Lee, 2021). Finally, accountability entails ensuring that all actions taken by social and health care providers have minimal effect on the rights of the service recipient. The principle presents safeguarding as an important duty of every professional who contacts a vulnerable individual (Legislation.gov.uk, 2022). The National Occupational Standards The National Occupational Standards (NOS) documents a description of the understanding, skills, and knowledge individuals should possess to be considered competent in their job. NOS for social and health professionals are regarded as a safeguarding tool for both the professional and the service user because it acknowledges that best practice can only be realized through integrating knowledge, skills, and values. Such tools, which are the basis for qualifications and training in social and health care are further used in particular job roles, as part of the supervisory process, and in recruiting (UK Commission for Employment and Skills, 2014). From an organizational perspective, the skills, knowledge, and understanding stipulated in NOS can be used as part of the employment process, to influence relationships with employees, and to facilitate employee development. Commissioning the strategies to form NOS throughout the organization ensures the prioritization of the safety and health of individuals within the organization, which reduces risks in the long run (UK Commission for Employment and Skills, 2014). Standards of Care Quality Commission (CQC) According to CQC (2022), CQC standards is to protect people from unsafe treatment and treatment and to prevent the preventable risk of harm or harm. The CQC delineates a regulatory body that inspects and monitors all health and social care providers to make sure that particular quality standards are being addressed, including person-centred care, respect and dignity, safety, consent, protection from abuse, provision of sufficient food and drink, equipment and premises standards, complain, good governance, proper and fit staff, staffing, display or ratings, and duty of condor. According to CQC standards, people receiving health or social care should access person-centred care, which is carefully tailored to individual preferences and needs. In the course of treatment or support delivery, the CQC standards require health and social workers to treat people with respect and dignity at all times, including ensuring they have privacy when they need it, ensuring equal treatment of all patients, and providing any support needed to help people remain independent and engaged in their community. The CQC standards also prioritize consent as a standard of service delivery where people seeking support or care must provide their consent before any treatment or care is given to them. Moreover, social and health care experts must not put the safety of support or care recipients at risk of harm, more so when the risk can be avoided (Care Quality Commission, 2022). CQC standards require providers to assess the vulnerabilities to people’s safety and health during treatment or care to ensure that they have the competence, qualifications, experience, and skills to keep them safe. Furthermore, CQC standards safeguard recipients of social and health care support from abuse including degrading treatment, neglect, improper restriction of freedom, and disproportionate or unnecessary restraint. The next standard concerns ensuring that people receiving treatment and care get enough to drink and food to keep them in good health while receiving treatment or care. The place where people receive care or treatment and the tools used must be suitable, clean and looked after well, and equipment used in treatment and care must be secure and used well. Additionally, social and health care providers must provide a channel through which people receiving care or treatment channel their complaints. The provider of care should have a system to respond to and handle complaints, and all complaints must be investigated and appropriate action is taken. CQC standards also include requirements for governance in which case providers are required providers of care or treatment to establish a plan to help them to meet CQC standards. Care providers must be sufficient and suitably qualified and must only employ professionals who can provide treatment and care appropriate to the needs presented. What is more, the duty of candour requires social and health care providers to be transparent and open about treatment and care, and providers must display their CQC rating so that they can be seen by the public (Care Quality Commission, 2022). AC 1.2 The roles of management in health and safety Managers have a critical role in developing and maintaining safety and health. Considering senior management and directors today are keen on health and safety regulation compliance, managers ensure the attainment of this objective by monitoring and implementing health and safety provisions within the organization. It is the responsibility of managers to also act as the channel for feedback and health and safety enhancement ideas from employees to top management and directors (Francis, 2019). All members of an organization have safety and health responsibility. For example, while top management’s responsibility is to train employees on health and safety matters, middle management is mainly concerned with training and educating employees since they are typically in direct contact with workers. While embers of top management may be responsible for developing safety policies and buying safety equipment for the organization, middle-level managers have a critical responsibility of ensuring that all safety policies are upheld through continued monitoring (Lee, 2022). Managers should, therefore, be trustworthy, and not be capable of compromising safety to attain particular objectives and boot their reputation in the process. Responsible managers should be able to strike a balance between the performance objectives of an organization and the safety and health responsibilities, ensuring employees exist in a risk-free work environment (Richards, 2003). AC 1.3 Safety and health priorities for a particular social and health care context M was a care assistant during the foremost visit to Ms X’s home. He had been informed that X’s home was in a poor state and that she owned...